Zack Snyder's upcoming adaptation of the influential graphic novel Watchmen is probably the most anticipated comic-book movie going at the moment now that The Dark Knight has been released. Certainly the reception Snyder and his cast received at Comic-Con last week would seem to indicate that the world is ready for a big-screen Watchmen adventure. (If adventure is the right word, that is…)

So while the Warner Bros. film doesn't open until next March, the Con-heightened buzz surrounding the movie would seem to merit a Cast-of-Characters dip in the pool of creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. That said, any discussion of the intricate storyline of Watchmen almost inevitably will lead to revealing a few revelatory plot points. So stand warned now that here there be spoilers!

The obvious fan favorite character in Watchmen, Rorschach is the guy audiences are likely to find themselves cheering for, if the film sticks as closely to the comic as Snyder claims it will.

Partly inspired by Charlton Comics' enigmatic character the Question, Rorschach is the most mysterious of the Watchmen heroes, an obsessive and quite possibly insane vigilante, who has continued his war on crime long after superheroes were outlawed by the government as a result of the 1970s Keene Act.

When the Comedian is brutally murdered, it is Rorschach who investigates the crime, realizing that there might be more behind the act than simple retaliation against Blake by some foe or another. Is someone hunting down the retired superheroes of the world?

Rorschach takes this theory to several of his former colleagues, and while they are at first dismissive of it, further assassination attempts and apparent framings of various heroes soon lend credence to the idea. Eventually, Rorschach himself is set up by some unknown force to take the fall for the murder of a former arch villain, and it is here, under the psychiatric care of the state, that we learn the true, gruesome origin of the character. Which isn't to say that a maximum-security prison can hold the ever-resourceful Rorschach for too long.

What face lurks behind this mask -- or is it the other way around?

Rorschach stands as the absolute arbiter of good and evil in the book, the character who sees no middle ground. Like his mask (or his "face," as he calls it) which simulates an ever-moving Rorschach test, there is black and there is white for this man, but there is no grey.